10 JULY 2022 The Observer Magazine h a t n d w it’s s e, a reall o y o l li gt ke n t o i n b r e a t e h l e n o r o e c o k r n st E a c r M o f n t e h n o n J i s ‘It’s been a hell of a ride’ ‘I’ve got 35 siblings and counting’ Green scene: the best veggie retreats Why men need to make more friends 10 JULY 2022 The Observer Magazine 3366 In this issue Up front 5 Eva Wiseman The joy of a good funeral. Plus, the Observer archive 24 7 This much I know Alison Steadman Features 8 ‘I’ve come out in a good place’ The furious life of John McEnroe 16 The confi dence con Why are women are told the key to success is self-belief? 20 Surprise siblings A woman learned her father was a prolifi c sperm donor Food & drink 24 Nigel Slater Cool and crunchy salad for hot days. Plus, raspberry tiramisu 28 Jay Rayner A boujie and brilliant lunch in Taunton. Plus, explore Loire red wines Fashion 32 Colour in Fun summer looks 32 36 The edit Polo shirts for men Beauty 38 37 Bright and up Mood-lifting red lips Interiors 38 Farmhouse chic A new lease of life Gardens OM 41 Plant to palace How lilies changed C RI. design. Plus, Denmark’s call of the wild U EJ M Travel Y S B 43 Clean-living retreats The UK’s best G N stays and classes for vegetarian food RI R EA Self & wellbeing M; O 44 Company man Why are men so bad at C Y. forming bonds? Plus, Séamas O’Reilly E N T AR Ask Philippa C MC 46 “I’m worried that my parents won’t A L 20 like my partner.” Plus, Sunday with L TE pop star Kim Wilde S Y B T R HI S M; O ON.C Contributors Los Angeles born and Max Dickins is an author, The Observ10 JUeLY 2r022 Magazine ThM aeg Oazbisneer, ver RTIZ (MATCHESFASHI Aawmnnhoddos rpt eh orwaerstc W rosaghoitonffi p it sh nsaodobtemloenge firas aoc apfe htfsahe isernh ion riiwcHsnaoe oiaBsmrrner kaom disrlol,t ue oJk fsranelcytn aireaniatcdl,tu epwiotr roCeroh rsbhjoie aaai nclsn taegsnd. d pspdFMetlleaaaasbyytntuew,id vtLsusaro, ip hlgva t iecthsh o tt Thifs hmau eAnnee dunEmdy gdri ae uitmnoncsb .oetD uH.vm eBreisgaoirl hlltiiyanrh Ft g a,Ner bisonot g uet JohnMcEnroeonlearningtolose,andwhat it’sreallyliketobetherockstaroftennis K9L(moPW0ob0riana2ins ngYlg0sedtoaset ro3ezr vdPnk3iaen l a N5daWret.c 31cR@ ae o9o2y,. Gc0u, hUk0e0 , ) O A entertainment . He our piece on the cult of male friendship, was Victoria Business NN seeks out the humanity confi dence (p16). Much of her published this week. ‘It’s been Park, Roche, A Victoria, OH and unique character work uses humour, and bendy- In this issue, he shares a hell St Austell BY J in each subject. Th is limbed characters, to create what he’s learned of a ride’ PL26 8LX E TT week, he shot our an honest way to engage in about why so many Cover image BRALE cfaoslohuiornfu sl tsourmy (mpe3r2 ). caonndv inetresrapteiornsso naarol uisnsdu esso.c ial min emni dlodslee athgee i(rp f4ri4en).ds ‘aGbWmIne’rvahsedektye cegv nmo eom sugtec ngon3eirt5 nenie nes e rfgi:eer bt’itdhleri etennoa dg tsss TSEonymtlve erStrha ainwm/ent The Observer Magazine 10.07.22 3 Up front Eva Wiseman A good funeral can be one of life’s most uplifting occasions  @evawiseman L ast week, I went to the most fabulous witnesses, to see what a life, and to see how loved. party, and it happened to be a funeral. It’s something that still feels quite profound to me, My best friend’s mum, Janet, died – a these coming-togethers of people after so many months clever, funny, brilliant woman who was of distance, whether at the funeral, where there were remembered for the way she danced lots of us, but only one thing talked about, or miles around kitchens, and smelled of perfume and fags, away at Glastonbury, where there were thousands of and trucked across the world with priceless artworks, people all singing one song. I have moments of feeling and brought up two of the most extraordinary girls pleasingly moved by crowds today, people needing in London. But while the loss was incredibly sad, her people, and acknowledging our mutual humanness in funeral was an absolute blast. glances or touch. Even if, of course, that understanding My friends and I dissected it on the way home in the is fl eeting and forgotten as soon as you leave, when a third of the book is either car. Why did it make us feel so… good? The journey somebody cuts ahead of you in a traffi c jam or gobs From the Welch exercising (in skimpy was long, the roads were blocked, so we had plenty of wetly in the street. That’s human, too. clothing) or not exercising (in time to dis cuss it, to think about the way their family One of the things this funeral did for us (we realised archive skimpy clothing). had performed this quiet trick, taken a sad song and as we crawled through a humid rush hour detour near To promote the book, made it better. They’d started by employing progressive Ealing) was remove some of our fears around death. A look back at the ‘jocks’ from the US Olympic funeral directors who gave them a copy of the book The seemingly casual ease of the afternoon led to us male swimming team they’d written, We All Know How This Ends , a guide to talking about what we wanted to happen when (if) we Observer ‘off ered their whole-hearted death and the lessons it teaches us about life. They said die, and to talk to our parents about it, too – we’d seen Magazine’s past support’, surrounding her talking about death and dying can be life-enhancing ; how joyful a funeral could be, how life-affi rming. wearing – and not wearing they never used the words “passed away”, always “died”. I’d always thought of funerals as a place to cry. – budgie-smugglers while And they insisted the funeral could be anything the Instead, it turns out, there’s a way to plan a funeral so Welch sported a spaghetti- family wanted it to be. that, as well as tears, there’s cake and laughter and the Raquel Welch, now 81, strap zebra-print bodysuit. There was nothing wild about the afternoon, nothing sense of life trundling merrily on, better somehow for was in ‘cracking form for Given that the swimmers fi red from a cannon or dropped from the sky, instead having contained the life of the person gone. With its a lady who has survived appear to be swimming not just this sense of gentle shared joy, passed from fondness and music, this funeral felt like a really good 44 years, 27 fi lms, three in water but oil and also that hand to hand. Beside the coffi n, Janet’s daughter did, leaving party, which, I suppose, it was. Everywhere there marriages and two children’ they seem to be attempting not a speech, really, it didn’t feel like a speech, it felt were people smiling. Everywhere Janet’s friends were in a photoshoot for the a sort of proto-twerk in her like a series of happy memories told beautifully and admiring the fl owers or telling stories, and reaching Observer Magazine in face, Welch’s salt and oil everyone laughed. A colleague talked about Janet’s for each other with meaningful hands and everywhere 1984. She was plugging the intake may have temporarily work, her husband talked about the places they’d people were saying, “She would have loved this.” ■ publication of her workout increased to dangerously lived and the family they’d built, their shared love of book, Raquel: Th e Raquel unhealthy levels during drunkenness. There was a poem which read like a love a fi lm about a star whose Welch Total Beauty and the photoshoot. letter, and there was mingling outside in the sun. At One more life I already know, I want Fitness Program, ‘like those Welch said it was while a café down the road a jazz trio played while we ate it to secretly be about other mature American completing a stint as the some sandwiches and drank some wine, and the place thing… something completely glamour pusses Jane replacement for Lauren was packed with Janet’s many friends, some old, some diff erent – shame, or fame, Fonda, Victoria Principal and Bacall in the Broadway play young, some she’d known from work, some from the or ageing – a nice surprise Linda Evans ’. Woman of the Year that the pub, everyone chatting and chuckling, and holding each for halfway through, when Th e book revealed book idea occurred, rather other’s arms with that perfect griefy care. the popcorn’s run out. Welch’s ‘most cherished than a suggestion by a I’m sorry to go on about the pandemic again when beauty secrets, physical publisher after Jane Fonda’s I know everybody’s doing so well at trying to forget In a piece for Refi nery 29, and mental’ and dr ew from Workout shifted millions of all about it, but God, every now and then the facts of I came to Sheena Patel’s Janey Starling writes vividly the Hatha yoga that she books and videos . it prick freshly at me : the way so many had to mourn I’m A Fan for the cover about ‘women’s spaces’, discovered seven years ‘I love Jane, but that book alone, or die on Face Time, or attend funerals from (clothbound, red on lilac) reporting that one in six previously. ‘Th e fact is,’ was sort of, well, tacky,’ said home and the distance of a shaky camera, or sit very far but stayed for the prose – refuges have closed since Welch confi ded, ‘that the Welch, unlovingly. Chris Hall apart in ventilated rooms while coffi ns slid away. It is burning, unforgiving, written 2010. ‘While the Violence mind and the body are unbearable, really, to remember. in the fi rst-person, the Against Women and Girls interrelated.’ I had thought before about how sad and how hard narrator uses the story of sector is under strain, Th ousands of women, it was to organise a funeral without hugs, without their horrible relationship to the transphobic lobby is apparently, had asked people to support you or hold your hand, but it wasn’t explore sex and power. currently attempting to sue about her diet. ‘When until this week that it hit me how diffi cult it must a rape crisis centre in Sussex they hear that I have have been to mourn somebody properly without also Are you going to see the for including a trans woman given up salt, sugar, oil having an opportunity like this, to celebrate their newElvis fi lm? I’m not in their women’s support and processed food,’ she life. The gatherings of warm bodies and unplanned sure. I’m worried that it’s group: £61,000 has been said, ‘they are aghast.’ She conversations, and strangers meeting across a one of those biopics that raised towards the centre’s described her step-by- memory that they didn’t know they shared. And just… tells the story? I grow legal fees for this case.’ step programme as ‘when food, and drink, and good things like that, passed weary of these montages Some feminists need to East meets Welch’, and over babies’ heads on paper plates, and all these as movies . If I’m watching think about their priorities. The Observer Magazine 10.07.22 5 TAKE A SHORT TRIP TO A Discover our range of elegant, peaceful hotels across the UK, with award-winning food and luxurious spas or explore the great outdoors from our self-catering resorts, all located within National Parks. BOOK DIRECT THIS SUMMER SAVE UP TO 20%* macdonaldhotels.co.uk/worldaway *Our summer 20% off promotion/offer is valid on stays from now until 30th September 2022. Subject to availability. Up front This much I know Alison Steadman, actor, 75 Interview ROZ LEWIS was the second or third day, we were I’m lucky that I’ve had a healthy I love bird watching and watching Photograph CHRIS FLOYD doing some rehearsal, when he said: life. If you haven’t got your health, you animals. You think: how can a young bird “I feel, I’m a bit out of my comfort zone haven’t got anything. I’ve got to count fl y to Africa? I have no sense of direction. My earliest memory? When my doing this.” I said: “Tom, if someone gave my blessings and every day have fun, live grandfather was ill in bed and I was taken me a microphone and told me to stand your life, do things. Friends of mine say The worst thing anyone has ever upstairs to see him. I was really young, on the stage at the Palladium and sing I do too much. But I want to be like that. said to me was when I was told that my maybe two or three years old. I remember to 2,000 people, I’d be a bit out of my mother had a few months to live. She had him holding my hand; I think he died the comfort zone.” We both just laughed. I think I’m an optimist. Although been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. next day. For months, when I went back I have to say, now I’m older, I do get days I said to the consultant: “You are not to to my grandma’s house I’d ask to go and I used to be very scared of fl ying. when I feel a bit down. I have to pull tell my mother that.” She’d have faded on see him. I thought he was still in bed. Every time I fl ew, I would shake like a leaf. myself together and move forward. the spot. My mother lived for two years. Then I said to myself: “If this carries on, I do enjoy a gin and tonic in the it’s going to ruin your life.” I got myself I love watching I’d like to be remembered for my evening. I see it as a relaxing thing, through it – now I’m perfectly fi ne. acting, and that I managed to earn a particularly if I’ve been busy working. birds. You think: living for my whole life from it, which I look forward to that, and olives. My boys I’ve loved being a mum. I was isn’t easy. One of the teachers at Liverpool send me up rotten about the olives. They particularly happy looking after my how can a young Youth Theatre said to me, “You should know I can’t have a drink without a bowl. boys when they were little. I did work, go to drama school and become an actor. bird fl y to Africa? of course – I didn’t want my career to I ’d hate the thought of you in 20 years S RES I was pretty starstruck when disappear. But I would balance it. Life I have no sense time, stirring your pan of stew, saying to A P I worked with Tom Jones. I did a little goes in stages. Toby is 44 and Leo is 40. yourself, “Oh, why didn’t I do it?” ■ ER half-hour telly with him a few years ago. It’s nice that they’ve sort of come back to of direction Alison is an ambassador for the charity, M A We played husband and wife. I think it wanting to be with mum a bit more. Marie Curie ( mariecurie.org.uk ) C The Observer Magazine 10.07.22 7 Interview TIM LEWIS Photograph SEBASTIEN VINCENT ‘You learn more from losing’ A s a fi l m abouthislifei s r el e a s e d , f o r merb a d b o y JohnMcEnroere fl e c t s o n h o w h e w e n t f r o m v i l l a i n t o te nnis h eeee rrr oo The Observer Magazine 10.07.22 99